Week in Review + Random Confessions + Instagram Q&A

Riese and I had a fun morning yesterday, starting with a late morning walk in Rock Creek Park with my friend Karen.

Riese hung out in the stroller for the first half of the walk then joined us in walking/exploring for the second part. :)

Karen had to get back to work after the walk break, but I decided it would be fun to have a lunch date with Riese before heading home. We didn’t have a ton of fast/exciting sounding lunch options at home, and with the drive I knew by the time we made it home Riese would be melting down hungry and so would I.

So, this was a much more fun option!

We walked to Duke’s Counter, one of my local faves, and shared the salmon bowl with forbidden (black) rice, some sort of a cilantro mayo, and pineapple salsa.

Riese has been a handful whenever we eat out lately, but she was actually pretty chill this time – we sat outside and there was a TON of action going on with people and cars and everything so that was probably part of it – lots to entertain her!

We both enjoyed the bowl, although if I were the one making it I would have done less rice (it was a TON of rice) and added some greens to vary the texture – maybe chopped kale massaged with a little oil and lemon juice or something. :)

Another fun meal this week was a girl’s night out – on Wednesday night I met friends Kathleen and Sarah for dinner at Zaytinya, an old fave we hadn’t been to in many years.

Look – a photo of us not in workout clothes and with our hair down! Shocking!

Kathleen is 37 weeks pregnant with her second baby so we wanted to make sure to have at least one more girl’s night before the baby arrives!

We ordered a ton of stuff and shared, as per usual. I think my absolute faves were the roasted cauliflower (so flavorful) and the spanakopita – really good flavor.

After dinner, we took a nice stroll with some gelato from Dolcezza. :)

I was super full from dinner but part of intuitive eating is that sometimes you eat past fullness because it’s a fun/special occasion, and that’s okay! I savored about half of the gelato and that was the perfect amount to get the experience + enjoy the flavor before I was over it. I got the peanut butter stracciatella and the Thai coconut milk. Both delish!

In other food news from the week, even though we did baby led weaning, sometimes I have days/meals where I just don’t want to deal with a huge mess and so I spoon (or fork) feed Riese.

I have not one but two run dates lined up for this weekend, though, which I’m excited for!

Need to make sure to maintain that base for my trail 10k coming up in June. :)

In other news, I did a question survey on Instagram stories this week to get some ideas for topics you’d like to see covered on the blog/questions you have for me, and I got a lot of requests for: more day in the life stuff, more Riese updates, details about our move (I’ll share more on this soon), and also more details on some of my fave DC running routes + running stuff. So stay tuned for more! And if you guys missed the Instagram story and have topic requests or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

I will leave you with links to two things that people also requested via Instagram:

The other request I got a couple times was related to how to do intuitive eating as a runner (especially training for an endurance event) – this is something I cover in detail in the Nutrition for Runners program that I co-authored with a running coach, so check that out (you can get started with some free lessons before committing): Nutrition for Runners Program.

Paul hasn’t figured out how to use a spoon yet. Our meals are so rushed since we have so little time in the evening on week nights so we haven’t really worked on it. I think they will at daycare so I kind of give us a pass on that… He mostly feeds himself with his hands. I recently discovered that he can suck down a puree without us having to spoon feed it to him, so that’s nice for times when we are on the go and I”m not sure if he’ll eat what is available. Plus we’ve been giving him prune purees to help with his constipation (ongoing problem for the poor kiddo!) so it’s nice to not have to spoon feed that to him anymore.

I’d also love more Riese updates! She’s 3 month ahead of our little guy so it’s kind of nice to see what she’s doing/figuring out. Kids are so different, of course, but I feel like Paul and Riese are kind of similar in terms of weight and developmental milestones. But Paul is going to be a late walker. He’s 14 months and isn’t walking yet. I think he could but when we try to work on it, he squats down. He has STRONG opinions about things! Ha! I tell myself not to worry about it, but right now when people ask about him, their first question tends to be “is he walking yet?” which makes me feel a little stressed or defensive about why he isn’t walking yet (he sat up independently later than most babies as he has a very big head – ha! – so it makes sense that he is going to be a later walker). Oh the things we worry about as moms. ;)